FPL has completed three new power plants, won’t need another until 2024

FPL commissioned its new Riviera Beach plant in 2014.Staff photo by Richard Graulich

Since 2013 Florida Power & Light Co. has built new combined-cycle gas-fired power plants at Cape Canaveral, Riviera Beach and Port Everglades at roughly $1 billion apiece, and a similar plant in Okeechobee is slated to go into service in 2019.

The company won’t need another major new power plant until 2024, and that will also be a combined-cycle plant that uses natural gas to produce power, FPL’s Steven Sim, senior manager of resource assessment & planning, told regulators Wednesday.

FPL also plans to add 300 megawatts of utility-scale solar power to its fleet by 2021. Locations for both the new solar and new natural gas plants have not been determined, Sim said.

Wednesday, Juno Beach-based FPL and the state’s other investor-owned utilities, Duke Energy Florida, Gulf Power and Tampa Electric Co., gave the Florida Public Service Commission an overview of their plans through 2025.

FPL, with 4.8 million residential and commercial accounts, projects it will have approximately 5.5 million accounts by 2025. The state’s population is forecast to grow by 3 million people to 23 million by then, FPL stated in a report filed with the PSC.

Statewide, natural gas, which is a fossil fuel, is projected to remain steady as the fuel for 65 percent of electricity generation over the next 10 years, and renewable energy, such as solar and wind, will grow to 2 percent , said Stacy Dochoda, president and CEO of the Florida Reliability Coordinating Council.

FPL’s use of natural gas to power its plants is slightly higher at 68 percent this year. It’s projected to hit 70 percent in 2017, and remain close to that through 2025.

Combined-cycle plants, which produce energy by combustion of natural gas in a turbine and by using the turbine’s exhaust to make steam, and solar photovoltaic plants are viewed as the two most cost-effective options, Sim said.

“The more we study PV, the more we become convinced it is becoming increasingly competitive,” Sim said.

The cost of PV modules — a packaged, connected assembly of solar cells — is projected to continue to decline.

FPL is adding three new PV facilities of approximately 74.5 megawatts each this year. As a result, FPL’s solar generation capacity will triple to 333 megawatts from 110 megawatts.

Federal and state energy efficiency, as well as savings from the use of compact fluorescent bulbs and LEDs, are also impacting FPL’s forecasted future demand and energy requirements. By 2025 FPL’s forecasted summer peak load is projected to be reduced by more than 1,800 megawatts and its annual energy consumption by more than 8,700 gigawatt hours, FPL said in its report.